Eric White

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Eric White,

an Australian technologist, entrepreneur, businessman and manufacturer of consumer electronics and dedicated chess computers. Starting computer chess business in the late 70s, founder and along with Ken Cohen co-founder of the Hong Kong manufacturers Cassia (1979-1981), White and Allcock (1981-1984) [1], Newcrest Technology (1984-1991) aka CXG Systems, National Telecommunications System Ltd. (1991-1993), Krypton Ltd. (1994), Timorite Ltd. (1995-1996) [2], Systema Leisure Ltd. (1997-2001), and subsequently other Hong Kong companies [3]. Eric White had his computer chess debut with the Cassia Chess Mate [4] which was a clone of Ron Nelson’s Fidelity Chess Challenger 10 (A) [5].

Collaborations

In 1981, Eric White started the collaboration with David Levy’s and Kevin O’Connell’s new company Intelligent Software. White and Allcock’s first own dedicated chess computer was the CXG Sensor Computachess [6] with a 4-bit Hitachi processor HD44801, and the program by Mark Taylor using only 160 nibbles of RAM, which predecessor was already instantiated in the SciSys Mini Chess series earlier this year.

Chess computers were designed in Hong Kong, manufactured in China, and then marketed under various brand names and retailers, including CXG [7] [8], Computer Games Ltd. (CGL), ComputaChess, Crown, Hanimex, Unimex, Tandy via RadioShack, Krypton [9] [10], Schneider [11] [12], Systema and Toytronic. In 1998 in partnership with Tiger Electronics ( Hasbro) [13], White produced the Tiger Grenadier and Tiger Voice Master [14]. Chess computers were also manufactured for Excalibur and Millennium 2000 [15]. David Levy was the source of programs for all cheaper models [16], using Sunplus 8-bit chips [17] (now Generalplus [18]).

Affiliated Programmers

| Author

List of computers [19]
Kaare DanielsenDanielsen, Kaare
Chrilly DonningerDonninger, Christian
Gyula HorváthHorvath, Gyula
Richard LangLang, Richard
Frans MorschMorsch, Frans
Mark Taylor & David LevyTaylor, Mark

Forum Posts

References

  1. “White and Allcock was meant to be a joke name for the partnership, the ‘all cock’ being Ken Cohen. It became a source of amusement to White and Cohen that their Chinese colleagues never realised”. Quote from Chess Computers - The UK Story by Mike Watters
  2. De firma Krypton en Timoride in vogelvlucht by Hein Veldhuis, Dutch and German pdf
  3. Chess Computers - The UK Story by Mike Watters
  4. Cassia - Chess Mate, pdf hosted by Hein Veldhuis (Dutch)
  5. Re: Ron Nelson by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 24, 2015
  6. CXG Sensor Computachess from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  7. CXG Electronic Chess Computers from The Spacious Mind
  8. CXG from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  9. Krypton from The Spacious Mind
  10. Krypton from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  11. Schneider from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  12. Schneider Electronic Chess Computers from The Spacious Mind
  13. Tiger Electronic Chess Computers from The Spacious Mind
  14. Tiger Voice Master from Tom’s English Homepage by Tom Luif
  15. De firma Millennium 2000 GmbH Hegener & Weiner in vogelvlucht by Hein Veldhuis, Dutch and German pdf
  16. Chess Computers - The UK Story by Mike Watters
  17. Sunplus MCU
  18. Generalplus homepage
  19. List of computers from Schachcomputer.info Wiki contains various manufacturer

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